It wasn’t pretty, but the tenth-seeded Virginia Cavaliers women’s basketball team did just enough to pull out a 57-55 win over fellow No. 10 seed Arizona State in the NCAA Tournament’s First Four on Thursday night.
Inside Iowa’s Carver-Hawkeye Arena, the ’Hoos took the floor in the Big Dance for the first time since 2018. Slow starts have doomed Virginia recently — a big part of why the ’Hoos were limping into March Madness
on a three-game losing streak — but Coach Mox’s squad finally got out to an early lead (by shooting 54% from the field in the first quarter) and managed to fend off the Sun Devils the rest of the way.
With the win, Virginia will advance to face seventh-seeded Georgia in the Round of 64 on Saturday. Tip-off is set for 1:30 PM EST with coverage available on ESPN2.
In the meantime, here are three takeaways from Thursday night’s huge win over Arizona State:
Big-time players make big-time plays
On Selection Sunday, Coach Mox went on ACC Network’s Nothing But Net and set the stage for her All-ACC First-Team point guard, Kymora Johnson.
“[Kymora] belongs on the big stage,” Coach Mox prophesied. “She knew what she was coming to do here at UVA, and she has stayed true to that process … She wanted to come here and get her hometown school back on the map, and she’s done a great job of that. So, I’m happy that she gets to showcase her talent on the big stage.”
Four days later, with the score tied and less than a minute on the clock against ASU, Johnson delivered on her coach’s words. Though she was just 4-of-17 from the field and 1-of-7 from 3-point range to that point, Johnson didn’t blink in the game’s biggest moment.
As soon as ASU’s best defender, Gabby Elliott, gave her an inch of space, Johnson pulled up and drained a go-ahead triple to put UVA up 54-51 with 30 seconds to play.
The junior point guard from Charlottesville finished her evening with 17 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists, making winning plays throughout the game even as her shots weren’t falling. In March, sometimes the best play is to simply put the ball in your star’s hands and get out of the way. That’s what UVA did late on Thursday, and it paid dividends.
Survive and advance.
Between four seasons’ worth of ACC Tournaments and a 2024 WBIT run, Virginia was just 2-5 in postseason contests under Coach Mox entering Thursday evening. A program that has been capable of taking down top-10 teams in recent years (evidenced by UVA’s upset of then-No. 8 Louisville on the road in late February), UVA just hasn’t been able to overcome shaky performances to survive postseason games lately.
That was not the case against the Sun Devils.
Though the ’Hoos didn’t bring their A-game (or perhaps even their B-game) to Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Virginia brought more than enough heart and made just enough plays to survive and advance.
Between UVA and ASU, the two teams shot a combined 34.2% from the floor and 27.5% from three (and Virginia only made 11-of-17 free throws). But with the shots not falling, the ’Hoos did all the little things right.
Virginia won the battle of the boards (including grabbing 15 offensive rebounds), took care of the basketball (committing just 10 turnovers against a chaos-causing ASU defense), and played without fouling (just nine fouls).
Sometimes you have to win ugly in March. But a win’s a win, and the ’Hoos live to fight another day.
Next up: Georgia
Virginia will have less than 48 hours to gameplan for the seventh-seeded Georgia Bulldogs, who enter the weekend 22-9 and 8-8 in the SEC. But as we’ve already seen in the men’s tournament this season, the team that has had the chance to shake off the rust and nerves by playing in the First Four can be at an advantage in the Round of 64.
Georgia sits just two spots above Virginia in the NET rankings (34th), though they bring a very balanced attack into Saturday’s matchup. The Bulldogs rank 35th in adjusted offensive efficiency and 28th in adjusted defensive efficiency, according to BartTorvik.com, and boast impressive wins over Kentucky and Vanderbilt this season.
It won’t be easy, but Virginia already has a win under its belt in the tournament (and the confidence of a victory without even delivering its best performance). ESPN Analytics currently gives UVA a 45.1% chance to knock off the Bulldogs. But if they can shoot more efficiently from the floor and get out in transition, the ’Hoos are more than capable of pulling the upset.
